


DOV AH CLAUS

by mongoose_bite



Series: Dyce the Incredibly Easy Breton [17]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Christmas, Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:52:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongoose_bite/pseuds/mongoose_bite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dyce discovers a new word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DOV AH CLAUS

**Author's Note:**

> I really should have posted this before Christmas, but I completely forgot.

It was unbelievably cold. Dyce struggled grimly on through the snow, his fur cap pulled down firmly over his ears. The Greybeards hadn’t lied; there was a word wall up here, he could see it, piled high with snow. He’d never been so far north. He swung his pick again into the frozen ground, pulling himself a bit higher.

To his surprise, there seemed to be no dragon guarding the wall. It was strange, but he wasn’t about to complain. He trudged up the last few feet and paused to catch his breath. Right. Here we go.

He stepped forward and his eyes watered as he read the word off the weathered stone, and it imprinted itself on his soul. He thought about it for a while, but he couldn’t work out what it did. Probably no harm in giving it a try; there wasn’t anyone around to be accidently hurt by it.

_DOV AH CLAUS_

Suddenly, he wasn’t cold anymore, and his pack was incredibly heavy. He struggled to pull it off, feeling it bulge at the seams. What the hell? He didn’t even care that his leather gloves had turned red. He managed to get his pack open and was hit in the face with a great scroll of paper, that spewed out and unrolled across the snow. When it finally stopped unrolling, Dyce picked it up and stared at it.

It was a list of names.

“Fuck.” Somehow, Dyce sensed that he’d begun a quest. There was only one thing to do, sit down with his journal and work out what was required of him. This new leather armour, he reflected, was quite nice; bright red with white fur trim wouldn’t exactly help him blend into the shadows, but it was incredibly warm.

Pretty sexy too. He’d have to wear it next time he visited...well, anyone. But right now he had more important things to do. He opened up a new page in his journal and doodled with a stick of charcoal.

“I need a couple of elves,” he said, although he wasn’t sure why.

~~~  
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” Erandur said, glancing nervously down the street.

“Will you shut your pious friend up?” Enthir said, his pick scraping away at the lock. “He’ll have the guard on us any minute.”

“It’s Yuletide, they’ll all be at the Inn,” Dyce said amiably. “Still, you might want to keep it down.”

Erandur eyed Dyce’s outfit dubiously, “It won’t be me getting all the attention.”

“Got it!” Enthir straightened up and opened the door. From inside came the smell of wood and glue and paint. Dyce and Erandur followed the Bosmer inside.

“Right,” Dyce said. “Erandur, we’re going to need a blessing of strength. I want everything that’s not nailed down.”

“These things aren’t worth shit,” Enthir said. “A couple of septims each at most.”

Dyce tugged one of his ears irritably, “Tonight, they are priceless. Try and separate them into different bags. Games in one, wooden weapons in another and so forth. I’ll be back soon.”

“Where are you going?” Erandur whispered.

Dyce grinned. “Bakery.”

~~~

Whump! Enthir fell flat on his face.

“I think your blessing wore off,” Dyce said. He released his burdens before the same thing happened to him while Enthir dug himself out from under several sacks of toys.

“Mmm.” Erandur looked out over harbour. “So what now? You can’t possibly expect to give all these out before dawn, even with the fastest horses in Skyrim.”

“Who said anything about horses?” Dyce asked.

“Why have you been dragging those sodding harnesses then?” Enthir asked. “Those bells are starting to get on my nerves.”

“I think you’d better learn to like the bells.” Dyce took a deep breath, “ _Odahviing!_ ”

The others ducked as the shout of a dragon echoed from the surrounding mountains. Odahviing circled the trio before landing with a thump a short distance away.

“Dovahkiin,” Odahviing rumbled. “Why have you summoned me? I see no battle.”

“Krosis.” Dyce grinned. “Tonight our enemy is time,” Dyce said. “We need your wings, not your claws.”

Enthir and Erandur took a step back as the dragon snaked his great head close, looking at the harnesses Dyce had dropped in the snow. “Do you really think you can bind me again?”

“With these? Nope.” Dyce folded his arms. “I don’t want you to wear them, I just want you to hold them. Maybe jingle them a bit.”

“And if I don’t, Mortal?”

“I’ll kick your scaly arse again. Listen, Odahviing, I’m not fooling about here. I can prove it.”

“Can you really?” Enthir asked. “Because I’m not convinced, even if he is.”

Dyce sighed.

_DOV AH CLAUS_

Silence descended as each considered the results of the shout.

Dyce whistled. “Damn, Enthir, you look good in tights.”

“Thank Mara I still have a robe,” Erandur said fervently. “Even if it is somewhat...gaudy.”

“Red and green are definitely your colours,” Dyce said. “Are you cold, Enthir?”

“No. Although it makes no sense that I’m not. What magic is this?”

“Hmm.” Odahviing heaved a great sigh. To Dyce’s disappointment, the dragon hadn’t changed colour, or acquired any decorations. “That is an old shout, made strange by the passing of centuries. Whatever spirits you have conjured, Dovahkiin, perhaps it would best if we acquiesced to their demands. For one night.”

“Right,” Dyce rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have that blessing again, and then all aboard.”

Odahviing lowered himself and let the three of them climb aboard with their stolen pastries and toys.

“Where are we going?” Erandur said, his arms around Dyce’s waist.

Dyce narrowed his eyes in determination. “Everywhere.”

Odavhiing opened his mouth and shouted before his great wings unfolded and hurled them into the sky. Rather reluctantly, the dragon held the harnesses in his front claws, and jingled them.

~~~  
Dyce and Enthir spread out, lockpicks in hand, going from door to door, while the sounds of revelry drifted over from the Winking Skeever. Odahviing perched silently on roofs, letting Erandur scramble off his back with armfuls of goods. Occasionally he gave the bells a bit of a shake.

“See, I knew you’d start to enjoy it,” Dyce whispered, as the priest tucked a toy bear (made from real bearskin) under the arm of a sleeping girl. Erandur shook his head as he tiptoed past Dyce so he could relock the door, but Dyce could see he was smiling.

“That’s a fine piece of work.” Enthir stretched out a hand for golden candlestick.

“No!” Dyce hissed in his ear. “Not tonight.”

“Fine, but I think it’s a wasted opportunity.”

As the lights of Solitude slipped away behind them, Dyce pawed through his huge list and crossed out name after name.

Odahviing hovered rather reluctantly outside Dragonsreach as Dyce leaped from his back to the sloping roof. He pointed at a sack, “That one.”

“It’s heavy,” Enthir said, as he tossed it to him. “What’s in it?”

Dyce opened it and held up a lump of coal, stolen from the forge. Erandur raised his eyebrows. “Why are you giving them that?”

“Sometimes,” Dyce said. “That’s just the way it is.”

The hours passed slowly in a blur of slippery, snow covered rooftops, silent houses, and the eye-watering slipstream as Odahviing carried them from one end of Skyrim to the other. The sky was starting to lighten in the east when Odahviing hovered outside the College of Winterhold and Enthir slipped back in through his broken window.

“It was certainly an experience!” he called as Dyce waved at him from the dragons back. "Let's never do this again."

By the time they were at Dawnstar, Erandur was snoring gently on Dyce’s shoulder. Dyce shook him awake and he yawned.

“Drop me at town,” he said. “I’m supposed to give a sermon, if I can stay awake for it. Then it’s cider and sleep for me.” He kissed Dyce’s cold cheek. “Don’t celebrate too hard.” He climbed carefully down off the dragon’s back and bowed.

By the time Dyce arrived back in Windhelm, his armour had returned to its normal colour and lost its white fur trim. Odahviing didn’t hang around to talk, instead leaving as swiftly as he’d arrived after advising Dyce to avoid using that shout too often.

Dyce himself was exhausted, but was not planning on missing out on any of the celebrations he’d been invited to. He planned to catch a few hours sleep in Hjerim and then take the cart to Riften for the Guild party.

The door creaked only slightly as he eased it open; Calder would still be asleep. He decided he was more tired than hungry and crept upstairs to the master bedroom.

Despite the fact Dyce had given no notice of his intent to return, Calder had set out a huge plate of cookies and a mug of eggnog next to his bed. Even stranger, they were both still warm.

After eating and drinking his fill, Dyce took off his armour and went to bed, and he swore he could still hear those damnable bells ringing in his ears.


End file.
